


Upon Great Persuasion

by anactoriatalksback



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: @terror_exe flash fest, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And almost certainly inaccurate at that, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Medical Jargon, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: Alex McDonald is on a search-and-rescue vessel away from home, saving the world. Stephen Stanley has completely normal-sized feelings about that.
Relationships: Dr Alexander McDonald/Dr Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 32
Kudos: 44
Collections: @terror_exe Flash Fest





	Upon Great Persuasion

**Author's Note:**

> For the terror_exe flash fic challenge, based on the following prompt: [alexander macdonald? alexander macdonald, who proposed to you? One Million Times, as i heard?](https://twitter.com/terror_exe/status/1299303745961046016?s=20)

‘And you say you’ve ruled out viral meningitis?’ says Stephen, leaning forward.

‘I haven’t, but it’s Libya, and you know the case fatality for bacterial meningitis there.’ The picture’s futzing around the edges, but Stanley thinks Alex is running a hand through his hair. If he closes his eyes, he can feel it spring between his fingers.

‘Hmmmm,’ says Stephen instead, very much _not_ closing his eyes. ‘Have you thought of West Nile?’

‘…In Libyan refugees?’

‘Did they pass through a camp? Any of them?’

‘I’ll ask around.’ Alex leans back. ‘Thanks.’

Stephen shrugs. ‘I think I saw some research on IgG antibodies in Tripoli. Nothing conclusive. I’ll take a look.’

Alex smiles, enough for his dimples to peek out. A man in his forties, Stephen thinks – a man in his forties in a _warzone_ , no less – has no business looking like a schoolboy about to show you a tadpole in a jar.

‘Thanks again, Stephen.’

‘I wouldn’t get excited,’ says Stephen, ‘the research, I told you, is not conclusive.’

‘But you’re looking anyway,’ says Alex, his voice warm and his dimples deepening.

‘Thank me if I find something,’ says Stephen.

‘I will,’ says Alex easily, ‘and I’ll thank you now for looking.’

‘Yes,’ says Stephen, shifting, ‘well.’

‘How are you keeping?’

‘The usual,’ says Stephen, ‘Blanky’s telling everyone you’re on a Club 18-30 cruise in the Mediterranean. I have neither confirmed nor denied this.’

Alex throws back his head and laughs. ‘Well, he’s got the gist of it.’

Alex is, indeed, on a ship in the Mediterranean. The ship’s carrying out a search and rescue of refugees fleeing from Libya, and Alex, with a contingent of doctors and nurses from _Medecins sans Frontieres_ , is on hand to provide emergency care.

Stephen has many and varied feelings about this, which he has conveyed in many and varied ways, none of them particularly functional. One of the things he has insisted on is that Alex check in with him every day if he can, because Alex’s pillow will only smell of his hair for so long.

Or, as Stephen put it: ‘Talk through your cases with me. I can’t in good conscience saddle asylum-seekers with _your_ diagnostic skills alone, they’ve suffered enough.’

(Alex understood. Stephen knows he understood because he responded with a kiss that left Stephen’s head spinning, instead of asking Stephen to come with him again.)

As it happens, they _don’t_ talk every day, because the emergency medical wing on a search-and-rescue vessel in the middle of the Mediterranean is not the first place you go to for uninterrupted high-speed internet.

It has, in fact, been a week since Stephen saw even a grainy, constantly-fritzing image of Alex’s eyes and smile and the dimples he should frankly have outgrown three decades ago, and Stephen has been – calmly, judiciously – considering a number of options, up to and including:

  1. selling the Jaguar so that he can personally fund Alex’s specific vessel, and more particularly its broadband capabilities, and even more particularly whatever machine Alex has access to;
  2. petitioning the Charities Minister to defund, if necessary the entirety of _Medecins Sans Frontieres_ , but specifically the wing on Alex’s vessel, so that he’ll have to come home.



He hasn’t ruled either out.

But in any case, here is Alex, eyes tired but bright, hunkering over whatever wretched device he has managed to requisition, and neither course of action is – currently – necessary.

So Stephen says instead: ‘If you _do_ come back with an infection, I would recommend _not_ the West Nile Virus. It’s unlikely you’d come by that on a Club 18-30 holiday. You’d put Blanky’s nose terribly out of joint.’

‘Mustn’t put Blanky out,’ says Alex solemnly. ‘Best come back with gonorrhea, you think, aye?’

Stephen’s lip twitches and he tells himself to stop. ‘If you could trouble yourself to contract something a little less pedestrian, I’d be in your debt.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ says Alex, and stretches his arms over his head.

‘Are you all right?’ says Stephen. He looks away as he says it.

‘I am,’ says Alex. ‘And you?’

Stephen ventures a glance at Alex, who is – inconsiderately – staring directly at him. He says ‘The worst I have to contend with is the Jubilee line.’

‘Bad enough,’ says Alex, ‘I’d have to put my foot down if it were the Northern line, mind.’ He leans his chin on his hand and looks at Stephen with a familiar eye, dreamy and intent at once.

Stephen coughs. ‘You should go,’ he says. ‘I have that ETV/CPC tomorrow, and it’s God knows what time where you are.’

(Stephen knows exactly what time it is where Alex is.)

‘I’m on nights anyway,’ says Alex, ‘but you should turn in. Good night, _mo chridhe_.’

Stephen disconnects before Alex can see him blush. He suspects he’s not quick enough about it.

Stephen wakes up the next morning feeling lighter than he has for a week, and deciding not to examine why. He braves the Jubilee line and goes in to Guy’s to perform an endoscopic third ventriculostomy. It develops complications, of course, and it’s eight hours later that he manages to get out. He sits down in the canteen with a dispiriting salad and a pudding with clinical depression, and glances at his phone.

He has a message telling him his inbox is full. He raises an eyebrow and taps the screen.

70,000 unread messages, all from Dr Alexander McDonald.

He feels sick. His feed hasn’t told him anything about escalations in the Mediterranean, but that doesn’t mean anything. He pushes away his plate and taps the most recent message.

From: Alexander McDonald

To: Me

08:03:01

Am pos thu mi?

Stephen frowns and seeks out Google. What he finds makes him put down the phone and take a deep breath.

He picks up the phone again and taps the next message.

From: Alexander McDonald

To: Me

08:03:01

Am pos thu mi?

The message is repeated at 08:03:02, 08:03:03, 08:03:04, 08:03:05, 08:03:06, 08:03:07, and all the way until the limits of Stephen’s inbox are reached.

Stephen begins to tap out a reply, only to be informed that he will need to do some rather drastic housekeeping.

He scowls, saves the most recent message and deletes the rest. Before he can even compose a reply, however, his phone emits a series of pings so rapid they merge into one long protesting squeal. In seconds, his inbox is full.

Another 75,000 messages, all from Alexander McDonald. All with the same content.

This time Stephen has no compunction in clearing his inbox. Quite justifiably, since another 75,000 messages arrive seconds later.

‘You’re popular today, Stephen,’ booms Thomas Blanky, fresh from Orthopaedics.

‘Not especially,’ says Stephen, straightening in his chair, ‘I suspect Alex has lost control of his phone. He’s sending me the same message again - ’ his phone pings ‘- and again, and again.’

Blanky’s eyes are on Stephen. ‘Must want you to get the message awful bad, like.’

Stephen schools his face and shrugs. ‘Possibly.’

Blanky’s eyes are very sharp. ‘You’ll want to say something back, then.’

Stephen pulls his discarded plate towards him and inclines his head. He doesn’t feel up to meeting Blanky’s eyes. ‘Possibly.’

‘Alex not liking his singles cruise, then?’

Stephen chases a lachrymose lettuce leaf around its bowl. ‘No accounting for taste.’

‘There is not.’ Blanky lets out a laugh, uproarious and filthy, before getting up. ‘You should have the wedding in June,’ he says as he walks away, ‘I don’t like autumn weddings.’

Stephen says nothing in response, and he means it to sting.

Stephen has to clear his inbox ten more times by the time he manages to get hold of Alex.

‘Was it West Nile?’ is the first thing he says.

Alex looks a little thrown, but answers readily enough ‘It was. Interesting aetiology, I’ll tell you about the presentation when I get home.’

‘You can tell me now,’ says Stephen.

‘All – all right,’ says Alex, his well-loved face doing a number of very complicated things all at once. ‘If you like. I was thinking, though - ’

‘- I looked at that article I was telling you about,’ says Stephen.

‘…Did you?’

‘I did,’ says Stephen. ‘Rather ordinary work, as it happens, I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’

‘You didn’t,’ says Alex, and there’s an emphasis in his tone that has Stephen looking away.

‘Anything happen today?’ says Alex, and Stephen should remember that the man opposite him knows him rather well, and is unembarrassed to use that knowledge.

‘The ETV had complications,’ he says.

‘Lose the patient?’

Stephen rolls his eyes, and Alex grins at him. ‘Of course not. I’m a fule to ask. So,’ his gaze sharpens, ‘what else happened?’

Stephen raises his eyes and says ‘I had a message.’

Alex leans forward. ‘Did you now?’

Stephen nods.

Alex wets his lips in a quick movement, and his dimples vanish entirely. ‘And,’ he breathes out, ‘what do you say?’

‘It’s a little difficult to respond,’ says Stephen, ‘because my phone won’t let me.’

Alex is beginning to frown.

‘Until I clear my inbox.’

‘I don’t - ’

‘Because I have nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine unread messages.’

Alex is blinking. ‘What did I - ’

‘You sent me the same message exactly one million times,’ says Stephen. ‘I’m assuming a similar tactic is how you got into medical school.’

‘Boil yuir heid, you fucking roaster,’ says Alex, but the dimples are riotous now. ‘And you’ll not blame me for asking more than once if I still. Haven’t got. An answer.’

Stephen doesn’t like his own smile, and deeply resents his inability to stop smiling around Alex. So he takes what small victories he can when he says ‘Blanky says he doesn’t like autumn weddings.’

‘Something for us to bear in mind,’ says Alex, his eyes bright and soft.

‘ _This_ autumn doesn’t leave us time enough to plan,’ says Stephen, ‘and next autumn’s too far off.’

‘A conundrum,’ says Alex, ‘but if you’re set on autumn…’

Stephen says ‘I’m _set_ on you getting a better internet connection if you’re going to be my fiancé long-distance.’

‘I’m coming home, hinny, it’s only a few months.’

‘Nevertheless,’ says Stephen. ‘The Charities Minister is coming in for an MRI next week. I might have Goodsir let me in for a little word with her.’

‘Don’t get Harry in trouble now.’

‘Harry?’

‘Harry Goodsir.’

‘He’s never told me that.’

‘He asked me to call him Harry.’

‘Did. He.’

‘Never mind that now,’ says Alex, but he’s grinning. ‘What will you say to the Charities Minister?’

‘I’m going to suggest that MSF’s vastly underfunded.’

‘They’ve known that for years, Stephen, why - ’

‘- Particularly its operations relating to the Libyan refugee crisis.’

Alex ducks his head and looks up at Stephen. A forelock has fallen over his brow. Stephen’s hand twitches to brush it back.

‘You need a haircut,’ he says instead.

‘You’ll ambush the Charities Minister when she’s having her head scanned to get her to cut my hair too?’

‘If you think it’s necessary,’ says Stephen.

‘You would as well,’ says Alex, ‘you utter madman. You think Harry’ll let you do it?’

‘ _Goodsir_ ,’ says Stephen, spacing out the letters with emphasis, ‘will do as he’s told.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ says Alex, ‘ever since he found out what you call me, I suspect the bloom’s come off the Stanley aura a wee some.’

Stephen sits very still. He says, with some care: ‘Goodsir knows I call you Alex.’

‘Not that,’ says Alex.

‘Alex,’ says Stephen, ‘how does Goodsir know that I call you - ’

‘- Pudding?’ says Alex, the dimples as deep as the Mariana Trench now, ‘how do you think?’

‘Why would you _tell_ him?’

‘Poor lad deserved a pick-me-up one day. Little reminder that you’re as human as the rest of us, even if you’re taller than God and like knives more than people.’

‘Does he know _how_ I say it?’

Alex shakes his head. ‘You’re welcome to give him a wee demonstration.’

Stanley says, with what he thinks is commendable control, ‘I am not going to do anything of the sort.’

‘You’ll want to clear things up for him, I’d think - ’

‘Good night,’ says Stephen.

‘Good night _what_?’ says Alex. His eyes are dancing.

‘It’s not a compliment, you know.’

‘I never said it was. Good night what?’

‘I could just disconnect - ’

‘You won’t, though. Good night what?’

‘How many times will you ask?’

‘A million. You know I’ve got form for it.’

‘I’m aware.’

‘It worked, didn’t it?’

‘If you mean that you wore me down - ’

‘By this light, I take thee for pity,’ quotes Alex.

‘And I yield upon great persuasion,’ says Stephen. ‘On which note - ’

‘Good night what?’

Stephen looks off to the side and draws in a beleaguered breath. Finally, in accents of histrionic disdain, he says ‘Pudding. Good night. Pudding.’

‘You make me very happy,’ says Alex, and the dimples are gone.

Stephen’s throat dries. He says ‘I’ll call you ‘pudding’ more often then.’

‘Numpty,’ says Alex, his eyes very soft, and disconnects.

‘Good night,’ says Stephen to the black screen, ‘pudding.’

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr handle is [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come yell with me there.
> 
> Thanks as ever to the mighty @attheborder for putting this together!


End file.
